Dr. Gretchen Benedix

My research interests focus on the evolution of the Solar System, which is complex due to the number of processes that affected the bodies formed from the gas and dust of the solar nebula.  These processes include rapid (impact, shock waves, lightning) and slow (short-lived radionuclides, accretionary heat) heating events, mixing events, and cooling events, which may or may not occur in the presence of water (most likely in the form of ice, rather than liquid).  Exploring how these processes occur is important in order to understand the nature of planet formation in our own Solar System.  

My work is to use the information we can find in meteorites to unravel the history of the parent rock a meteorite came from.  I do this by analysing the mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, spectroscopy, and more recently, geochronology of meteorites.  My broad background in meteorites allows me to draw comparisons between different groups.